Requiem of Desire
by Elle Austen
Summary: Two part episode. When a standard search of Sanduri IV leaves Captain Kirk, Spock, and Scotty transformed into Sanduri Spore Servants, the parties most deeply hidden desires come to life. With the aid of Astro-Herpetologist, Ensign Eveline Delesprit, will Doctor McCoy be able to diagnose the illness in time - or will darkness fall on the Enterprise?
1. Requiem of Desire: Part 1

Dif-tor heh smusma, Star Trek fans! Live long and prosper. And, if you enjoy this story, you can read the rest of the saga between Spock and Eveline Delesprit - precursor Taldurin Nights, and sequel Tempting Fate - by clicking on my name above. Thanks for stopping by, peace and long life.

* * *

I stared down the barrel of a microscope, and three eukaryotes stared back. Wispy and green, with bright orange, central nuclei. Against the blackness that my peripheral eye cast around their forms, they looked almost like galaxies. Unfathomably large macrocosms, shrunken into tiny, unblinking, building blocks. I yawned.

Currently, the U.S.S. Enterprise floated - as still as these careless cells - in orbit around Sanduri IV. It is the smallest, uninhabited, planet in the Zuggtmoy system. This is what the Ship's Computer told us. Likewise, currently, Captain James T. Kirk, Chief Science Officer Spock, and Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott are stationed on Sanduri IV in response to a particularly disturbing censor reading picked up by the Chief Science Officer. This is what Ensign Chekov told us. As for me?

I ran long, delicate fingers through frizzled stands of curling burgundy hair, held too tightly to my scalp in an attempt to stay awake for long hours in the brightly lit, Biological Sciences Section of sector four, my new home. I stretched long legs out underneath the desk and curled and uncurled sock-laden toes while my Federation-issued boots lay in an organized heap, just beyond the reach of my flexing digits.

I glanced around the room. My roommate, Astro-Geologist, Ensign Gracie McKendrey too looked as if she could fall asleep at any moment, while Hydro-Specialist, Doctor Matrin Yurin watched her beyond his reading glasses with less than honest intent. Two environmental scientists, whose names I had yet to gather, bickered silently, while a young, blonde Astro-Botanist by the last name of Pell appeared to be doing some sort of unsanctioned experiment involving lichen and hydrochloric acid. I watched him for a few minutes, when he noticed I was staring. He smiled a large, bright-white, toothy smile, and then turned his back to me so that I could no longer see. I sighed. Leaned back in my chair stretching out a long, curved back and letting my ass sink deeper into that cushioned seat. Then waited.

Another uneventful day in space.

—

Pew! Pew! Brzzzt!

Phaser blasts went off like wildfire.

Captain Kirk, Chief Science Officer Spock, and Chief Engineer Scott formed a tightly-knit triangle, back to back, and turned as their phasers fired one after another, sending giant sentient fungus after giant sentient fungus to hell in blasts of blue light.

Ensign Marcus O'Leary, Astro-Botanist, and Ensign Danielle Vella, Engineer, lay dead just beyond their reach. Their red shirts glistened in the pounding sun of Sanduri like blood-soaked beacons. A reminder of the impending doom.

Despite the fight, more and more of these humanoid lichen moved in on the commanders, until in a fury of phasers and screams, they were overtaken.

—

The flashing light above the sliding door of the Biological Sciences Section dinged green. A call we were quite used to. I half expected it to blink red and being to buzz, but then I remembered with a soft sight of relief that if anything, Chief Science Officer Spock was a man of his word. Doctor Martin Yurin ran his hands over the characteristic spines across his high cheeks and forehead and through his greying and receding hair, turning from Grace to myself.

"Pell. Delesprit. Take the information on the fungus that was sent here and bring it to the bridge. The captain has returned."

"Sir? I am a herpet-." I didn't get the chance to finish.

"Damn it Ensign, I know. O'Leary went down with them or else I would have sent him."

I sighed, standing and joining the young plant-murderer who now carried a small tricorder. Its red light flashed slowly with a distant blip-blip.

"Doctor." I acknowledge, boots returned to my feet, and saluted him cordially before leaving through the sliding door with my companion.

I studied Pell immediately, rational brain always on overdrive. I believe that he's about 18, though he looked as if he couldn't be a day over 15. Wide, impish face, big, far apart, watery blue eyes, little pink rosebud of a mouth, and a mop of curly, dirty-blonde hair that gave him that prodigy sort of look. Though our uniforms were all perfectly tailored to our body specs, he still managed to somehow look as if he were swimming in his trousers, and he walked a pace too quickly for it to be natural, and slouched his shoulders in a way that reminded me of a cartoon character from my childhood who's name I could not remember. I kind of liked him, until he opened his mouth.

"Doctor Yurin only sent you away so that he could be alone with your roommate without you always looking over your shoulder."

"What?"

"Oh come on." He looked at me over his shoulder, still a few paces ahead, with a crooked, malicious smile. The tricorder in his small hands blipped gleefully.

"You're always watching him watch her. He's got a huge boner for whatever-her-name-is. Pretty girl, big tits, sexy accent. He's just waiting for the opportunity to show her something "scientifically relevant" in the microarray room."

'Scientifically relevant' was Doctor Martin Yurin's catchphase. As well as 'theoretically speaking'.

I scoffed, "How old are you?"

"17."

Damn, I am good.

"You sure act like it. How could you possibly be an Astro-Botanist at 17?"

Pell stopped and mockingly scrunched his face up like a child and said, "I'm real smart." He extended the word 'real' out almost as much as his little lungs had air left to be mocking.

I blew him off with a flick of my hand.

"Come on." He said. Perhaps 'come on' was his catchphrase. "He probably got a hand up that tiny skirt the second you walked out. Denobulans' take three spouses after all." He winked, and pretended to thrust at me.

"Stop being gross." I shook my head, and walked in front of him.

"Oh come on! You're jealous. I mean yeah, you're hot. Kind of tall. But the only guy who looks at Eveline Delesprit is Rob Nixon, the slow security personnel. And he is seriously slow. Like smashing bugs with a rock all day slow. Someone must have given him a good fall when he was a kid. Turned out to be a brute, though."

I furrowed my eyebrows and chewed at my pink, bottom lip. Oh god, that explains so much. Poor Rob. I made a mental note to maybe not be so nice to him all the time. Scratch it, I can't not be nice. Especially to slow Rob. I shouldn't call him that.

I snapped out of it.

"Get moving, Pell. We may be equals but I'm at least older than you."

"Hell yeah you are, what are you like, 30? You have smile lines."

"I'm 28, Pell. I'm a masters in Herpetology and I am beautiful and wicked smart and more men than just Rob Nixon are interested in me, I can assure you."

"Right, keep telling yourself that."

At that moment, we turned down the hallway which led past the transporter room and towards the bridge. The door slid open, and out from it emerged Captain James T. Kirk and Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. Pell and I stopped in our tracks, raising our hands in salute.

Captain Kirk swung his body around towards us, in an off, unnatural manner, while Chief Engineer Scott moved forwards with considerable control. They did not speak. As they moved closer, I noticed that they both had vibrant green eyes. Flashing with color. Not normal. Kirk has hazel eyes. I was certain of it.

"Pell," I managed to whisper, but my declaration was cut short by a streak of blue light, jutting down the hallway and whizzing between the two of us, striking the floor with a powerful crack and sending shards of metal and dust flying into the air. Both Pell and I dove out of the way of the blast. I crawled a few feet and then pulled myself off the ground.

Pew! Brzzzt! I managed to dodge out of the way just as another streak of blue phaser light cracked against the ceiling, shattering the lights and sending sparks raining down.

The hallway was filling with smoke. With limited visibility, I scattered. But I didn't make it more than 5 paces before a strong hand gripped at my hair, pulling it loose of it's unkempt knot, and another wrapped itself around my mouth - muffling my cries.

My cheek slammed up against the cold, metallic wall of the Enterprise. The smoke was fading. I could smell the hot scent of liquor as his words slithered against my ear, raising the hairs on my neck.

"Oh, Ensign. You are a pretty thing aren't you? No wonder Spock couldn't say no. I can't either."

I whimpered, attempting to bite down on the hand that gripped my mouth as the Captain's knee jutted between my thighs and the weight of his body pressed me closer to the hard bones of the ship.

I heard a body fall in the scuffle behind me. No cry. Just the thud of flesh hitting the floor. Tears started to swell in my eyes.

"Mmm, you're even prettier when you cry. Go on…" He wrenched my head backwards, tugging on my hair so hard I screamed out into his hand. "I like it when they put up a fight. Fight me, Ensign. Make it rough."

I kicked my leg backwards, heel jamming into the top of his boot with all my weight. Nothing. I pressed my arms against the ship in an attempt to shove him backwards off of me. Nothing. Nothing nothing. Fuck, fuck.

Brzzzt!

The sound was deafening. I've never been that close to a phaser blast. I screamed and pushed myself away from the wall and the slumping body of Captain Kirk, stepping backwards without looking into the outstretched arms of Pell, jumping when I felt him, and turning around with my own phaser raised.

He was bleeding from his forehead.

At his feet lay Chief Engineer Scott, stunned.

"I'm sorry for what I said earlier. It's not funny." Pell's words fell from his mouth with a rasping hopefulness that his apology would fix whatever just happened to us. It wouldn't.

"What's you name?" I asked.

"Mikey."

"Mikey, I owe you my life."

Twenty feet ahead, next to the still open door of the transporter room, I pressed the large silver button on the ships communicator. Ensign Chekov's face, blurry but visible, appearing on the screen.

"Red Alert, Ensign Chekov!" I screamed through the screen in panicked breaths. "Captain Kirk, Chief Engineer Scott!"

"Eveline, watch out!" Mikey called. I could see the reflection in the screen. Chief Engineer Scott had risen, phaser raised to the back of my head.

I ducked just in time, as the blast singed my ear and hit the communicator in full force, destroying it.

The ship exploded with sound. Weem-weem! As red lights began to flash throughout the hallways.

And I ran for my life. I ran with my phaser raised, without turning around, as fast as my long legs could carry me, grabbing Mikey Pell by the shirtsleeve and dragging him with me.

Pew! Brzzzt!

Another shot of blue light hit the floor. I turned around and fired wildly and blindly, phaser set to stun. Pell joined me. Blasts were firing and slamming against everything in the hall. I had a flashback to a classical movie I remembered watching my freshmen year at University in film class. Strange space travelers dressed in white full-body armor, firing madly and never hitting their target. Sweat was forming a film at my hairline and tears still stained my cheeks. Then we did hit someone. Scott first, fell with a hard thud at the end of my phaser. Then Kirk too, as Pell, with closed eyes, fired a stunning shot right into the Captain's forehead.

We ran down the halls, dipping and diving, through the mass of flashing red light, until with relief we found our chambers, parted, and locked the doors behind us.

"Computer, do not let anyone inside without the code."

"Certainly, Ensign Eveline Delesprit." The softly feminine, but robotic voice responded.

I was alone. Though the room was silent, I was surrounded with sound - the ragged pants of my breath, the pounding of my heart, and the ringing of my ears - a deafening reminder. I pressed two fingers to my throat. Epinephrine? I moved my hand lower, grazing against the curve of my breasts. Cortisol. I leaned upwards onto my forearms, and when I finally opened my eyes again, tears were still running from them.

I buried my face in my palms, when suddenly, the door opened.

"Grace?" I exclaimed, jolting upward from my bed. But it wasn't Grace.

Standing in the doorway, powder blue, Federation-issued shirt slightly ripped and revealing the soft, black curls that graced his chest, and solemn face locked onto my own, was Chief Science Officer Spock.

"How did you get in here?" I asked, frightened. His eyes were a beautiful, but nightmarish, flashing green.

"I wanted to see you, Eveline. I…I used my clearance to get your door code when it didn't just let me in." The Officer held up his tricorder for me to see. It bleeped.

I didn't speak. My muscles tense. I was frightened of him, of those eyes, just like Kirks.

He moved towards me slowly, setting the tricorder down on my bedside table and joining me on the bed. He tilted his head, examining my face with a gentle curiosity. He reached out long, delicate fingers, and I flinched at his touch. He held still for a moment. Though his bizarre green eyes flickered with madness, they met mine with an alien familiarity. Slowly, he continued, brushing the tears away from my cheeks.

"Your face is wet."

"Spock, what's wrong with you?" My voice was begging him even though I didn't want it to.

"Me? I'm perfect, except that you're afraid."

He reached his arms around me, wrapping them tightly around my back and drawing me in, comfortingly, to his chest. He buried his face in my hair and held me lovingly, quietly breathing me in, then kissed my forehead.

"Please don't be sad, Eveline. You're making me sad." A tear-stained streak graced his pallid cheek.

I swallowed a dry mouth. Since Taldurin Beta, three months prior, Spock had done little to acknowledge our engagement. I hadn't expected otherwise. I hadn't expected romance. I hadn't even expected a return visit. Though I suppose that I had hoped for all of them, even one of them. Chief Engineer Scott would have killed me. Captain Kirk would have likely made me wish I were dead. But this? This was serious cruelty.

I pulled my delicate, freckled face from his chest. Pale, pink lips slightly parted and eyebrows furrowed into an honestly frightened, but somehow uncontrollably playful pout.

"James was going to hurt me." Spock raised his eyebrows and frowned, running his hands down my arms and intertwining his left hand with my own, fingers laced.

"I won't let him. You're safe now, you have me. And I promise I will never let anyone hurt you."

He raised his free hand to my pixie-like chin, tilting it gently and leaned forward to meet my mouth in a soft, warm, liquid kiss. My eyes fluttered closed, mind flooded with memories I had tried so hard to hold onto.

"You're mine, Eveline. Always."

My heart was racing, pupils dilated, blood pumping with cortisol. This was not Spock. Not the man I wanted. But gods, did I want this. Did I dream of this moment.

I reached my hand upwards, pressing my palm against his neck, tracing the masculine curve of his throat, running trembling fingers over his collar bone, over his exposed chest. I could feel his pulse quicken in his throat. I untangled our fingers and with my other free hand, slid it under his shirt, pressing my palm under his ribs and biting my lip. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. The Vulcan flushed.

"I dream about you, Eveline. I miss you." He wrapped his arm around my back and gently lowered me onto the bed.

I felt the warm touch of his fingers as the pressed high against the inside of my thigh, and quietly gasped.

"You're bruised." His voice was filled with concern.

"I'm going to be okay."

Then, he smiled. I had seen this smile flash over his face before. Ephemeral. But this one stayed. It felt so real. He nodded in response to my dismissal of an experience that at this moment, I tried to forget. Gathering my face in both hands, he leaned over me and kissed me fully. I could feel his racing heart pressed against my stomach.

I slid my hand down his tensing abdomen, finding the band of his trousers and passing it, moving my fingers through a tangle of hair. He parted our kiss. Chest rising. Lips parted. Green eyes glistening. No. I cupped his high cheekbones with my free hand, fingers grazing a cut on his forehead that I hadn't before seen. Cut deep, looked painful. And there was something in it. Something green. Something strangely familiar. I cocked my head.

What in space?

It was the lichen that Pell had been experimenting with…and it was…throbbing?

Chief Science Officer Spock furrowed his dark, slanted eyebrows and frowned.

"What is the matter?" He asked.

I emitted an overpowering, internal sigh. My heart was slowing. My adrenal glands had managed to come to terms with my earlier shock and were no longer sending pulses through my system. My, well, nearly all of me had managed to put on the breaks. My head at least. And I had to get a closer look at his forehead.

"Spock, I can't. I've had a bad day. You're not yourself."

"I am myself." He asserted.

"You're not. You're not acting like the Vulcan I know." I began to slip from his grasp.

"Please. Don't leave me this way." His expression was stern but exuded an overwhelming sense of wanting.

"I am so filled with longing, Eve - with fear, with lust, with love - so hopeful, so honest…so, so Human."

He was wracked with emotions, his face twisted with them.

My heart ached for him in this moment.

"I desire this." His voice a low rumble. "More than anything."

More than anything. Illogical. But my mouth was curling into a little half smile. So, it's not Spock, not fully. But, it is Spock's body. Besides, I needed to get a closer look. Something was wrong with him, something that had to do with this strange lichen, the one Pell was examining in the lab. Something happened on Sanduri IV, something I needed to solve, and then stop. But not now.

He tucked loose strands of red-brown tresses behind my ear. Big, square, male fingers finding their way lower, and removed my small, pale blue uniform. Gripping my ankles, he pulled me down against the sheets.

My eyes widened and I emitted a low purr - lashes fluttering closed. Oh, Vulcan. Where did you learn this, I wonder?

"Mmm." He growled.

"Spock?"

In response, he brushed his nose against the tender, bruised flesh on the inside of my upper thigh, sending shivers up my spine.

"This is what I desire, too."


	2. Requiem of Desire: Part 2

From inside of the Sickbay, the horrifying sounds of the ship's metallic screeching and whirring sirens were drowned out by the even more horrific sounds of panicked nurses and dying patients. The morning had started off slow enough, a decent amount of grumbling, a bit of singed flesh, nothing out of the ordinary for Doctor Leonard H. McCoy. In fact, he had been hoping to get in a nice long day of light drinking, but those plans never seem to work out.

Nothing could have prepared the doctor for the return of Captain James T. Kirk, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, and Chief Science Officer Spock. Their mission was simple enough - to beam down to the surface of Sanduri IV to investigate some strange censor readings. McCoy himself had done the preliminary on the crew. All, including the two ensigns in red shirts whose names he was now failing to remember, were healthy. It was to be another uneventful day in space.

Now, his ward was crawling with frantic personnel, vials of fluids, petri dishes filled with bizarre substances, severed limbs, and the smells of bile and phaser-blasted clothes. His head was aching, his eyebrows had arched to unimaginable heights, and he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Right when he thought he couldn't bare to watch these eukaryotic cells molecularly express themselves for one more moment, Nurse Chapel bustled into the room.

"It's the Captain, Leonard."

"Thank the gods, Chapel. Send him in." Doctor McCoy groaned, rubbing his eyes so forcibly, he caused little white stars to float around the room.

"No." Nurse Chapel stuttered, still trying to gain her breath and to avoid dripping blood onto the floor. "It's the Captain. He's causing this."

Doctor McCoy slowly turned to the disgruntled nurse, his swiveling chair making an almost silent but somehow insufferable squeak. Just when he thought his eyebrows could not navigate any closer to his hairline, there they were, nearly forming a single entity.

"I managed to get some information out of a young, blonde engineer." the nurse continued. "She informed me that Captain Kirk did this, he and Scott. It backs up the information we've been gathering. She said that he was insane, some sort of madness. Then she went mad. We've sedated most all of them but, more keep showing up. I think it's some sort of infection. Have you been able to work through the samples we've given you?"

Nurse Chapel then turned her attention to the desk at which Doctor McCoy was seated. The number of samples were stacked so precariously high, it looked to her like an exact replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. She flashed the doctor and ephemeral smile and caught a bit of blood that was dripping from one palm into the other. Her face was sweaty, her hair was frazzled, and her day was, inexorably, ruined.

"Just let that simmer." She said, in regards to the information, and then left.

Doctor McCoy rubbed his eyes again, and reached out to pluck the top sample off of his leaning tower. He held it up to the light and then held it down beneath the table, trying to glean something from it. It appeared to be some sort of plant substance, from what he knew. Considering it to be rubbish, he chucked in into the trash.

—

The room was dark. Quiet and still. Only the soft breaths of the Vulcan scientist who lay beside me permeated the depth of this room, and of my mind. I lay with my eyes closed, focused on the image of the cut on his forehead. Green fungus, strange, moving and glowing, almost sentient - responding to my prying eye. I had to know what it was, what was happening. How to fix it.

Though the siren was silenced in here, the swirling red emergency light flashed in the darkness.

I turned to him, watched him sleep. Slanted eyebrows, relaxed in slumber. From his long nose, high cheekbones, and curling, cat-like mouth to his square jaw, masculine chin, and pointed ears, he was beautiful. Elven-like in his delicacy but purely masculine in his form. Those strong, sloping shoulders, bearing trained muscle that continued along the lean curve of his large arms, were draped above his head on the soft pillow.

I leaned in closer, to get a better look at his wound. The cut glowed green as my nose drew nearer, causing his face to twitch in threat of awakening him. I hadn't given myself much time, but I had enough to at least understand a little bit about what I was dealing with. A makeshift plan. I knew where I needed to go.

Slowly, I slid from the bed and slipped into my discarded uniform.

"Computer?" I whispered.

"Yes, Ensign Eveline Delesprit?" She whispered back.

"I need you to do a manual override on the door."

I held up Chief Science Officer Spock's tricorder, plugging in a bit of information to get what I needed. Connecting it to the computer mainframe in my room, the robotic voice of the Ship emitted a low gurgle, displeased by my unwelcome algorithm, but eventually subsided.

"Your door code has been modified and can only be opened from the outside beginning in…five…four…."

Her countdown was as good as gold. I took one final look over my shoulder, and sighed - goodnight, beautiful - before slipping through the sliding doors and into the danger of the hall.

Weem-Weem! The sound of the siren was like a slap to the face.

Luckily, the hallways had mostly remained clear. As I turned the corner, the slumped body of a security personnel lay against the wall. I checked his pulse. Nothing. Then I checked his face. Tuft of brown, crew-cut hair, big, sad, downturned eyes. It was Rob Nixon. Shit.

Pew! Brzzzt! A phaser blast shot down the hallway, nearly grazing my ear. I turned around and raised my own phaser to the figure. Dark hair, red shirt, green eyes glowing and flashing like a wild animal. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, and he was bleeding like a stuck pig, still not showing any signs of letting up. Pew! Brzzzt! I dodged a second blast and took off. Sorry, Rob.

I pulled out the tricorder and input a few digits. It began to beep and whirr in my hands, the green, pixilated screen lighting up with the location of Pell's quarters and the code to unlock his door. Pleased, I took off running.

—

As the door slid open, a flash of blue light shot past my face. I ducked, then reprimanded the culprit.

"Pell! It's Eveline, come out. I've had enough phaser blasts shot at my head for one day."

"Eveline!" From behind the bed scrambled a mop of dirty blond hair and a blood-caked, impish face. Judging by the sweat stains on his uniform, he'd spent the last hour cowering.

"How'd you get in here?"

I held up Spock's tricorder with a sly smile, then tossed it on his unmade bed, quickly following behind. The teenager joined me, curling his long legs underneath his gangly form, and picked up the piece of equipment from the sheets, turning it over in his hands.

"This is nice. Where'd you get this?"

"Doesn't matter, Pell. I come to you with information about what's going on. And it's going to blow your seriously smart mind."

Pell didn't seem convinced. He continued to examine the tricorder, lifting it above his head to check out all of its angles and tapping his finger against the metal casing. The ones we used in the labs were older, this one was Federation-issued, brand new. So new, it must have been picked up at our last port stop but, it was certainly well used. There were little dings in the metal and scrapes along the side, as if it had been left out in a light hail or brushed against hard stone.

"This tricorder belongs to the Chief Science Officer." He deduced.

"It does, Pell. But, right now that is beyond the point. I need to talk to you about the experiment that you were doing in the lab. I actually need to know where your tricorder is, if we're going to be talking about tricorders."

"Did he hurt you?"

"Spock? No!" I scoffed, dismissing the thought with a wave of my hand.

"Did you hurt him?" Pell asked, his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion and his mouth hung half-open, revealing those large, too-white teeth.

"No, Mikey. We didn't hurt each other. He's asleep."

"Asleep?"

"Asleep. In my room. Are you okay?"

I was beginning to get worried that the blow to his head caused some sort of irreparable damage to his mind, which at this point at least, I was really kind of counting on. Suddenly, the young scientists eyes widened and he looked directly from the tricorder to my face. His confusion was replaced by a sort of mischievous glee, and I was forced to remember that he was only seventeen.

"No shit."

I nodded that indeed, it was shit. He laughed whole-heartedly and set the whirring electronic back down on the bed. After he had successfully gotten his laughs off, he seemed to rattle around in his brain for some more information. Realizing that he had moved on to the right track, I continued.

"It was, admittedly, the officer who got me to my conclusions. You see, he had a cut on his forehead and inside of it was trace material that reminded me exactly of the lichen that you were working on in the lab. But get this, it was moving. It was sentient, I think. It reacted to my touch, it even reacted to my movement, and I think it's controlling the Captain and Scotty as well."

"They're Spore Servants?"

"Spore Servants!" I exclaimed, exasperated. I knew that I knew what was going on. We had run into the same kind of problem on Talduri, three months prior. I cursed myself for letting any moment of that away mission slip my mind.

"Wait a minute, Eveline. You hooked up with the Chief Science Officer even though he was insane with fungus-brain?"

I flushed. I could feel my whole face getting hot and my palms beginning to sweat. In my typical fashion, instead of responding with words, I just snorted and moved on. I wiped my wet hands on my uniform and continued.

"So, how do we fix this?" I asked, hoping that somewhere in the giant abyss that was Pell's knowledge of plants he would be able to come up with a rational, scientific answer.

"How the fuck should I know?"

Perfect.

—

After too long of being berated with personal questions from the young scientist, and after the occasional phaser blast against the door had died down, we had managed to come up with the beginnings of a logical plan. Thankfully, Spock was secured in my bedroom. As for the Captain and the Chief Engineer, they were likely causing havoc somewhere else in the ship. At this time, all we needed to do was make it through the halls until we reached Sickbay.

Pell knew that there are several types of fungus in the known galaxy capable of spreading spores in this manner. Unfortunately, beyond that, the knowledge regarding the treatment of such conditions was generally placed upon the doctors, and not the botanists. Thus, we found ourselves once again scuttling through the heart of the ship like two rats awaiting extermination.

The ship was in a terrifying sate of absolute silence and stillness in some parts and horrifying screams of depravity in others. On numerous occasions, we stumbled through an area where it appeared that the Captain and Scotty had gotten ahold of some of the ships personnel and infected them as well. All manner of mischief was happening, and we didn't want to take part in it. I felt as if I were running through some sort of apocalyptic wasteland, and I tried my best to close out the sounds and focus in on maintaining quiet, inaudible breaths and footsteps. Thankfully, within a short amount of time, we reached our destination.

Slipping in through the sliding doors, we came face-to-face with several of the ship's nurses, sporting masks and gloves. Before we had the opportunity to speak, they had grappled us and were pressing us down against an old-fashion cot, attempted to administer a shot. In a scramble of limbs and cross words, I managed to free my left arm from the grasp of a thankfully, small nurse, and use my free hand to cover my shoulder, where a considerably larger medical student was readying a hypospray for injection.

"Please," I cooed, attempting to sound less frantic than I felt. "We're here to speak to Doctor McCoy, I believe we've come up with the solution to what's happening on the ship."

I strained my green eyes to look down on the tricolor, which hung around my neck and now dangled over the side of the vintage medical implement.

I wish that I could say that as quickly as we had been captured, we had been released. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case. It wasn't until, echoing from inside of the doctor's office, came a disgruntled wail and the sound of shattering glass, that we were able to convince the exhausted medical personnel that we were indeed, here to help. It looked to me that they could use all of the help that anyone was willing to offer.

I felt the same way when Pell and I had slipped into the doctor's office to find him slumped over his desk in a mix of rage and exasperation. Calmly, I reach my hand down to press against his shoulder. He didn't lift his head, he simply grumbled.

"What is it this time?"

Within a half an hour, we had managed to bring a slight smile to the doctor's face and fill him in on what we had gathered thus far about the crisis at hand. Though at times I could feel that same pang of annoyance towards Pell in the doctor that I felt when I realized how young the botanist was, he listened politely and intently, and eventually grew to be a bit excited by the whole endeavor.

"I know a little bit about it." Pell was saying. "The fungus will infect lifeforms with their spores, and over time those spores will sort of, well, they sort of eat the thing's brain and then turn them into zombies." He watched me attempt to hide the cringe and shutter that spanned over my limbs, and fail. In an attempt at comfort, he continued.

"It's actually not all that uncommon, you know. Back on Earth, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis will infect carpenter ants, and the ants will climb to the top of the forest canopy to die, and from their corpses one of these little mushrooms will sprout and it will then be in the perfect place to rain more spores down on more carpenter ants. So, what the ants are doing, and this is really interesting, so what the ants are doing is -."

I cut him off.

"Is this going to kill them? The Captain and Spock, I mean. Not the ants."

"Definitely. I also suspect that it's causing these strange behaviors in the officers. What do you make of these psychological behaviors, doctor?"

"I'm a doctor, Ensign, not a psychologist."

Pell furrowed his eyebrows and sucked on his bottom lip, possibly trying to figure out where the doctor drew the line.

"I'm a psychologist." I announced.

"No, Eveline. You're a herpetologist. Are you sure that you're not infected?" Pell said in his traditional sneering voice.

"No. Stop it, Pell. I got my minor in philosophy and psychology, and it's come in handy on more occasions than I would have ever though necessary on this crazy ship. It's like no one here understands the human condition."

I rubbed my face in my hands.

"Captain Kirk is sexually aggressive, Scott is just aggressive, and Spock is…Spock is human? Emotional? I suppose. They're all suffering from irrationality, memory loss, and emotional duress. Likely, it's being brought on by some deep-seeded desires, magnified by stress, and warped by this parasite to become a sort of, it's sort of like an anxiety disorder. Where everyday stresses become amplified and distorted by the brain and turn into something monstrous."

"Sounds limbic." Pell said, offhandedly.

"Sounds like the amygdala!" The doctor slammed his fist down on the desk, rattling and then collapsing the piles of stacked specimens, and then rising from his seat. "Brilliant! Brilliant. We have the what, we have the where, and now all we need is the how."

"I have the how!" Pell exclaimed, gleefully. "A simple, non-lethal, hydrochloric solution! I whipped it up in the lab this morning."

Something was coming over me, some sort of inexplicable excitement either drawn on by the flurry of giddiness in the room or something beyond that, something I couldn't understand, but I was surprisingly enthusiastic about the process at hand. I reached out a hand and gave Pell a high five. A huge smile was playing across my face.

"Excellent! Good work, Ensign. Now, where did I put that damned dish with the mushrooms in it?" The doctor began shuffling through his desk.

Pell plucked the specimen from the wastebasket and handed it to me. Excitedly, I slid it across the table. Doctor McCoy snatched it from my hand and opened it feverously. Seeming to have regretted his actions, he quickly closed it again. Then, he gave up and opened it once more.

"Ensign…" He addressed me. "Ensign…" He was fishing for my name. His face was sweaty and his hair was disheveled.

"Eveline Delesprit." I finished for him.

"Delesprit! Right, French name. From Taldurin." He trailed off. I smiled brightly that he remembered me.

"I'm going to need you to round up the officers and bring them back to Sickbay. It's not going to be easy, but you're going to have to do it on your own. Mostly, I just need Spock. His damned green blood can put up with anything. You bring him here and I'll take care of him first, then we can work on the others, once we know this is safe."

Normally, I would have been appalled at the doctor's proclamation to try a risky treatment out on Spock. All simply based off of the assumption that he was non-human and therefore somehow more suited to untested diagnoses. But, I was worked up from the ebbing and flowing tensions in the room. Instead of scoffing, huffing, or any other manner of immaturities that I resort to when my morals are questioned, I clapped my hands together and announced,

"That, doctor, I most certainly can do."

—

Beneath the fluorescent lights of Sickbay, Captain James T. Kirk fluttered delicate, blonde eyelashes. His strong neck tilted and cracked, and he furrowed his eyebrows in a moment of pain and confusion. From every corner of the room, he could hear the mummer of collected voices. Was this the afterlife? He flashed back to that faithful moment on Sanduri IV, where despite his best efforts to keep his crew safe, Spock, Scotty, and himself had been overtaken. The memory was painful, but not nearly as painful as the crink in his neck. If this was death, he imagined that everything should feel less stiff. Hesitantly, he opened one eye and scanned the room, quickly met by the smiling face of Doctor Leonard H. McCoy.

"We thought you were dead, Jim. At least that you would be dead." McCoy said. His voice was slathered with pride at his triumph in saving the captain, and at this point, damn near half of the crewmen of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

The captain stretched out his aching limbs, letting them quiver with the tension, and then rubbed the back of his neck. Between himself and the next cot over stood two Ensigns, one unfamiliar and facing him, a young man, and the other with a beautiful cascade of red hair, facing away. When he managed to grumble out a small response, the redhead turned. She had been standing over the unconscious body of Mr. Spock. Her face was filled with concern, but she smiled at the Captain nonetheless.

"Ensign Eveline Delesprit." The Captain barked, his voice still an unfamiliar gravel. "And…"

"Ensign Mikey Pell, sir."

"How?" He asked, and as he did, the doctor began going into the details of the last two days in full.

I turned away from the now-hazel eyes of the Captain and continued to furrow my eyebrows at the pallid face of Chief Science Officer Spock. Wake up, I begged. My motives were a conflicting diffusion of fear and selfishness. Each time my brain hungrily pleaded with the Vulcan to regain consciousness, it also silently hoped that he would wake with the memories of the moments we had shared. But, I'm not foolish. I knew better. And when the scientist finally flickered open those rich, chocolate brown eyes, they met my own with only the faintest glimmer of familiarity - hidden, perhaps - under the guise of duty. I smiled a closed-mouth smile, relived and bittersweet.

"Hello, Ensign Delesprit." The Vulcan cleared his throat, eyebrows arching as he examined his surroundings. "What happened?"

"You were infected by a parasitic fungus in the family Sordariomycetes, on Sanduri IV. The doctor has…" I glanced over my shoulder to where Doctor McCoy was gesturing wildly to the Captain, in a mostly fabricated tale, and then glanced back at the scientist. "heroically, found a cure. You'll be back to normal in no time, if you are not already."

"You look most unnecessarily worried, Ensign. I feel quite like myself."

I smiled and let out a single syllable laugh. I nodded, smiled again, and then bit my bottom lip, unsure of what to say next. Beginning to blush, I concluded our brief conversation.

"I am glad to hear it officer, and I shall be delighted for my next opportunity to work alongside you."

"As will I…" The Vulcan trailed.

As I turned away form the scientist, the captain, the engineer, and the doctor and found myself presently at the automatic doors of the Sickbay. I thought, for a brief moment, that I heard Spock conclude his thought with my name. An almost silent, mellifluous, Eveline.

—

After I had gone, Pell approached Spock. He had grown quite fond of me in our short time together, and even long after this day I was pleased to call him a friend. The impish, blonde scientist excused himself from the bedside tale of Doctor McCoy and approached the sullen Vulcan in his bed. His slanted eyebrows were still and his face was as stoic as cut stone. He appeared, to Pell, to be lost in thought. Quietly clearing his throat, he caught the attention of the Chief Science Officer, and they greeted one another on the appropriate terms, exchanging thanks.

"She has been by your side for over twenty-four hours, officer. If you'd pardon my frankness. I believe she's quiet fond of you." He articulated his thoughts into the most mature possible response, in an attempt to not sound idiotic to a man who was, undoubtedly, the most brilliant mind on the ship and someone Pell had looked up to in secret, for some time.

The Vulcan scientist turned to Pell and spoke somberly, and yet not without his usual conviction.

"After a time, she may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting."


End file.
